


The Return

by spacemagic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, In which Anakin does the right thing, for a change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8443075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemagic/pseuds/spacemagic
Summary: After leaving her to be buried by the falling temple, Vader returns to Malachor.





	

He arrives two months later.

The glossy shell that once covered this planet has cracked. The hollows beneath are scarred by fallen fragments of a collapsed sky, and ruins are left exposed like dry bones, bleached white by starlight. Squeezed of what little was preserved beneath, Malachor lies barren now. A waste.

She is buried here. Buried, in this graveyard of relics and rubble and forgotten history, beneath this crumbling temple, this skeleton world. It is unworthy of her, in all respects, but he cannot change that. He climbs from the ledge where his ship is perched, stepping past the remains of the fallen stone, to the cracks where the light cannot reach, to the edges where shadows dwell beneath, and a stone doorway that spirals down, and down, and down.

He could turn back now, his cape billowing behind him, take his starship and leave. Nothing would change. No one would know that he stood at this place, peering out at the darkness beneath him.

He looks down, at his gloves, and clenches his fists.

(He knows this feeling. It is old, familiar, and yet he knows if he could still breathe freely, it would leave him trembling, restless.)

From the shadows, he looks behind him. He sees a barren wasteland. He turns again towards the darkness, and steadily, he begins to descend. 

 

*

 

There are still traces of her, fingertips that once, gingerly, brushed this stonework as she slowly, ever so slowly, pushed her way forwards. Tomes, tablets unearthed and scraps of paper, ink, archaic remnants where she’s brushed off millennia of dust. Whispers, too, lingering in the force. It’s stale and thick here, and every syllable sticks in the air. 

“Peace is a lie,” she says, and he stops. 

When he hears her voice ring again, he stops.

Perhaps she knows he approaches. There is still a thread that ties them together; it is thin, it is fraying, it barely catches the light, and yet it still rests in his gloved fist, he can feel himself tug along it, grasp at its edges, without intending to do so, yet. He doesn’t stop himself. He wonders if it might break. Snap, if he placed too much pressure, too much force, if he pulled her too tightly, held her too much.

He does not stop, however. He continues to move with measured steps.

 

*

 

Fear is a beast ~~Anakin~~ Vader knows very well. He knows how to kill it instantly, how to snap its neck and dispose quickly of the remains, that garbled mess of memories full of smells and sensations and colours and people and things. How to kill it slowly, how to crush its limbs and leave its body thrashing helplessly in the furnace of his rage, charring every face and feeling it touched, he knows how to do that as well. He knows, too, how to skin away all the itching trembling nasty unable to breathe madness and become it, become ~~a shell~~ ~~a broken shell~~ the fear, become the shadow that seizes terror by the throat, whose footsteps are thunder to other, lesser men.

(He reminds himself: lightning cannot touch him, this far buried beneath the earth.)  

The dread never leaves, though. There are some parts of himself he can’t discard. And he is still trembling, before he approaches her.

_Ahsoka._

He doesn’t even speak the words. She spins towards him, hands leap to her belt – and then – hesitate –

She doesn’t draw her weapons.

“Anakin,” she says. His name.

He looks at her. Wide eyes still ocean blue, more tired than he knew, and a sharp jaw now a little agape, so much taller – and maybe fiercer, he would like to think – than she was, and she is trying not to shake, trying not to tremble, and she is not winning. It would be easy to kill her now, a part of him observes. It still hurts to look at her. It still _hurts_ –

He closes his eyes as his hands reach up to his helmet, to remove it, and place it firmly on the ground.

_Anakin._

He moves closer to her – as his breath begins to catch, to hitch, against his receiver – to look at her with his own eyes – he staggers – as her hand reaches out, to touch his cheek, or what remains of it – and he stumbles and grasps her and falls into her shoulders and holds her all at once.

“Ahsoka,” he says, with half a voice that doesn’t belong to him, “ _I’m sorry._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr [here](http://anarchoskywalker.tumblr.com/post/152584139965/have-you-ever-imagined-what-anakin-and-ahsokas).
> 
> This is actually based on a relatively popular post I wrote about what an alternate universe where Vader gets his shit together, reconciles with Ahsoka after Malachor, and take the Empire down before the Death Star can fire. [You can find that post in this link](http://anarchoskywalker.tumblr.com/post/151306557790/anarchoskywalker-the-good-ending-vader-returns).
> 
> I've talked about this before elsewhere, but I believe that Vader most likely lied to Palpatine about the conclusion of his battle on Malachor, telling him that she had been killed, when in fact he had not searched for her body, and had no real confirmation as to whether she was alive or dead. I would like to believe he chose to do that out of sentiment, rather than convenience, and that in another life, he would have come back for her.


End file.
